107-111 Comparative Mythology

see Prerequisites.

This subject focuses on mythic themes in a cross-cultural context. Students will start with specific themes in Greek myth (e.g. the trickster figure, birth and cosmogony, the quest, the archer/healer) and move on to examine other Indo-European traditions where similar narrative themes occur. Some attention is also given to the ways that these themes emerge in a modern cultural context, especially in the cinema. On conclusion of the subject students should have a grasp of the principal themes and cultural significance of the myths studied, and of some of the major scholarly approaches to comparative mythology.